Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright, better known by her pen name George Egerton, was a writer of short stories, novels, plays and translations, noted for her psychological probing, innovative narrative techniques, and outspokenness about women's need for freedom, including sexual freedom. Egerton is widely considered to be one of the most important writers in the late nineteenth century New Woman movement, and a key exponent of early modernism in English-language literature. Born in Melbourne, Colony of Victoria, she spent her childhood in Ireland, where she settled for a time, and considered herself to be "intensely Irish".